


We Were Reaching In The Dark (And Let It Wash Away, Wash Away)

by thegrumblingirl



Series: Why Don't You Save Me? (1 Million Celebration) [6]
Category: Dishonored (Video Games)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Ballet, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/F, M/M, Mutual Pining, POV Corvo Attano, Past Relationship(s), Relationship History, Unresolved Emotional Tension, but she knows how to google, grown-up Corvo/Daud, grumble knows nothing about modern ballet, it's been fifteen years and they're still stupid, young Corvo/Daud
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-13
Updated: 2019-10-13
Packaged: 2020-12-14 11:11:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,376
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21014819
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thegrumblingirl/pseuds/thegrumblingirl
Summary: The final movement complete, the last line sung, a reverent hush fell over the auditorium. Corvo and Daud stood, panting, their fingertips barely touching, their stances perfectly mirrored. Their eyes locked, and Corvo could see nothing beyond the grey. A bead of sweat trickled down from Daud’s temple. The silence was broken, irrevocably, by the thunderclap of applause rising from where their students were sitting, watching with rapt attention. The spell dispersed, they parted, and Daud dropped his gaze. Corvo followed suit.This had been a foolish idea.





	We Were Reaching In The Dark (And Let It Wash Away, Wash Away)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Jackdaw_Kraai](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jackdaw_Kraai/gifts).

> To celebrate posting 1 MILLION words on this here AO3, I [gave away ten request slots](https://screwtheprinceimtakingthehorse.tumblr.com/post/187537485520/grumbles-1-million-give-away) (all gone now). This is #6, for Claw!
> 
> Soundtrack: [The End of Love by Florence + The Machine](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jRFipSmLKfs).

_Said it didn't hurt at all  
And let it wash away, wash away_

The final movement complete, the last line sung, a reverent hush fell over the auditorium. Corvo and Daud stood, panting, their fingertips barely touching, their stances perfectly mirrored. Their eyes locked, and Corvo could see nothing beyond the grey. A bead of sweat trickled down from Daud’s temple. The silence was broken, irrevocably, by the thunderclap of applause rising from where their students were sitting, watching with rapt attention. The spell dispersed, they parted, and Daud dropped his gaze. Corvo followed suit.

This had been a foolish idea.

As he went back to his students, Alexi, the one he had started this rehearsal with, cast him an open, knowing glance. Behind him, he wondered whether the girl called Lurk was giving Daud the same sort of look.

* * *

It had all started in the spring. Corvo had barely been nineteen when he’d been accepted at the Royal Academy of Dance. He was the new kid, bright-eyed and in awe of the instructors that came to teach the coveted summer classes: famous (as much as infamous) dancers from all over the world. The scholarship he’d won barely covered tuition, and Corvo still saw his mother’s fearful expression when he’d explained to her that he _had_ to go. He _had_ to come here.

There was one other new student that semester, as the head of the department informed him on the day of his arrival. They’d do well to stick together, she said. After all, they both came from the South.

That summer in Dunwall… it changed everything.

Joy and fury made strange bedfellows, but so they were nonetheless. Corvo had learnt that lesson well. The young dancer introduced to him the next day was easily the most infuriating, stubborn, challenging man he had ever met. And he had never met another like him again. Nor one who would feel so much like a piece of his own soul.

It was part design, part coincidence that they were put together during the first class. Corvo knew it was a way to separate them from the rest — the two poor, southern boys who refused to completely shake their accents and threw themselves into training with the ferocity of those who had to fight for every scrap. They saw it in each other, too. The joke was on the others, when they realised what their matchmaking had wrought.

The first rehearsal, though, was a disaster. They stumbled and chafed and barked, not attuned to one another’s movements, and only too aware of the eyes on them, they took the tension out on each other. It took an hour of relentless grips and faults until Corvo had enough. In one fluid movement, he moved in front of him, hold underneath his ribs, and hoisted him up, barely waiting for a hand to instinctively grasp his wrist in return, and lifted him high above his head. He looked up, and was greeted with grey eyes staring down at him punishingly; even as the body above arranged itself into a perfectly held split.

“Work with me, not against me, you ass,” Corvo hissed. He willed his body not to tremble at the thrill.

“My name is Daud,” the other hissed back, and then vaulted over Corvo’s back to dismount in an insulting show of agility, landing right behind him.

Corvo wanted to turn and start again, but a sharp whistle interrupted his intention.

“Perfectly balanced,” Anton Sokolov said in his heavy Tyvian dialect. He had been one of the greatest dancers of his generation (and the next). To attend one of his classes was an honour. “Yes, you two will go together nicely.”

The two young men blanched in unison. Finally, something they could agree on, Daud’s sour expression seemed to say. But only for so long, for unbeknownst to him determination settled inside Corvo.

After the class, Daud was gone so fast Corvo had to hurry after him and chase him down. “Wait!” he called. Daud barely slowed.

“What, Attano?”

“We need to train,” Corvo said, all in a rush. “Together.”

Daud did stop, then, and turned so abruptly Corvo nearly barrelled into him.

“What?”

“You heard Sokolov. We’re perfectly balanced. If we can figure out how, if we can work this out, we could—”

“Sokolov’s an old fool who wants to keep us in our places,” Daud didn’t let him finish.

Corvo shook his head. Maybe, but— “Didn’t you feel it? How _easy_ it was? No-one does that lift on their first try. You know that, Sokolov knows that. And we just did it _on a hunch_.”

“That’s a technicality.” Daud crossed his arms over his chest.

“It’s physics. The rest is chemistry,” Corvo returned, almost mortified enough not to say it, but then it was too late.

Daud’s stony facade finally broke, and he dragged a hand down his face as he groaned. “You ass. That was atrocious.”

“My name’s Corvo,” he echoed Daud’s complaint, hope rising within him. “Come on. Just a few sessions. If it doesn’t work out, we have our answer.”

Daud eyed him sombrely now. “Something like that,” he gestured vaguely towards the building, “doesn’t just _happen_, Attano.” So he’d felt it, too. That current, the tension in their bodies translating perfectly for the other. “Tomorrow, 5am. Don’t be late.” He turned and stalked away before Corvo could even smile. He did, anyway, watching Daud’s retreating back.

And that had been the beginning.

The next morning, they met at the studio. Not the first to be there, but not the last to rise; and by far the most determined. They found a small, separate rehearsal space. Daud chose the music. They were calmer, now, more focused. They looked at each other and saw themselves for what they were. They moved alone at first, letting the music guide them, watching in the wall-length mirrors, observing movements and turns.

Slowly, their circles drew closer. They passed one another, front then back. They followed no choreography, only their instincts. Something never to be recreated, never captured. When Daud first touched Corvo, caught his wrist and reeled him in with nothing more than the subtle tilt of his shoulder and the pressure of his thumb, Corvo thought he might shout. On the return, he drew Daud along, and marvelled at how instantly Daud stretched to follow him, up on tiptoes, and then pirouetted around him, ready to catch him on the other side when Corvo let the momentum carry him.

“This isn’t a trust fall exercise,” Daud growled.

“Don’t ruin it,” Corvo said bare above a whisper. Daud spun him away with a simple push, and Corvo felt _free_.

In Sokolov’s next class, they drew all eyes in the room once again. But this time, not for their bickering.

*

By the second month, they were named prodigies. Fated. The perfect duo. By the third month, Corvo finally admitted to himself that he had fallen hopelessly in love.

Summer was only starting, and he had never felt so alive as when Daud’s hands nudged him into motion, his intent as obvious to Corvo as though on a broadcast. They read each other as movements, as arcs and turns and silhouettes. They knew where the other would go before they did.

They were spending most waking moments together, too. Being reassigned as roommates, it was hardly a mean feat. Training, studying, taking classes. They took meals together without noticing the curious looks. It was a whirlwind, and Corvo never wanted it to end. There was only one chasm between them that remained. It would be foolish to try and bridge it. Besides, Daud never looked at him that way.

Or so Corvo thought.

Until that night, high up on the roof of their dorms. There was a party, unapproved, and Corvo had had to practically drag Daud along — not for any want of following the rules, but the insolent suggestion that he may require a social life.

“They’re _your_ friends,” Daud complained, for the third time, joining him at the edge of the roof and handing him a cup.

“_You’re_ my friend,” Corvo told him earnestly (too earnestly) before taking a sip. Daud made to say something, but Corvo spoke over him. “You’re my friend, and my rehearsal partner, and my—”

He almost put his hand over his mouth to stop the words. Shit, and he wasn’t even drunk yet, as light as the waxing moon.

“Your what?” Daud was leaning in now, smirking, the waning sunlight reflecting in his eyes. Up close, he always looked… dangerous. Except when they were dancing.

_My everything_, Corvo could not say. _When we’re dancing. And when we’re not_.

Instead, he shook his head. He was young, and he was stupid. He’d grow out of it. Eventually. He looked back at Daud, raising his head quickly — too quickly, for he caught what Daud had wished to hide while watching him, it seemed. A look, certain and undeniable. It was hunger, it was longing. It might have been love, but for a moment.

Corvo’s breath hitched in his throat and, realising his mistake, it was Daud’s turn to hide his gaze.

“Daud,” Corvo nearly stumbled over a word so simple as his name.

“Corvo—” Daud said, and in his voice Corvo could hear the rest of what he meant to say. Daud was tense, searching for an out. He was going to leave.

“Daud, don’t go.”

“We can’t,” Daud returned, his words final. His eyes softened. “See you tomorrow.” He left, and Corvo did not stop him. For the first time.

Corvo got drunk that night, and barely slept a wink, wherever someone let him crash so he wouldn’t have to face going back to his room.

“You look like shit,” Daud greeted him at the studio.

“I love you,” Corvo said, young and stupid and suffering for it dearly.

Daud crossed his arms over his chest again. “Go home. Sober up.” His face so carefully blank. He looked older, like this.

“I’ll still love you when I’m sober.”

“Corvo—“

“I loved you a month ago. Maybe three.”

“_Corvo._”

“Tell me that the way you look at me means nothing.”

Daud looked away again, and sighed. “It doesn’t mean anything, Corvo.” He couldn’t look him in the eye when he said it.

It was a lie.

Without another word, they began to train. Daud had chosen chamber music.

* * *

When Sokolov appointed them as the lead danvers for that semester’s public stage production, there was an uproar that he old man greeted with a pleasant smile.

“They are perfectly balanced,” he would say serenely.

“Great. Now we have to train three times as hard, and rehearse even more,” Daud grunted into Corvo’s ear. Corvo could barely hear him for the blood rushing through him.

Daud was right, and so they did. They trained, they rehearsed, they studied late into the night and fell asleep curled around each other. It was almost enough. Almost. Opening night came. The season was to last a month, with performances every night. A chance for them to prove their mettle. Rehearsal after rehearsal after rehearsal, until everything was perfect. Or close to it. The night before opening, they were up on the roof again. Alone, this time.

“Our lives begin tomorrow,” Corvo murmured, looking up at the moon.

Daud huffed. “That romanticism will kill you, you know.”

“Not if your stubbornness gets me first,” Corvo returned, but it had no bite. “Or your foul temper, or your skepticism.”

“It’s called being a realist—”

“If you were a realist, you wouldn’t be a dancer.”

“No?”

Corvo shook his head, but he was smiling. Daud was loose-limbed next to him, worn out by their regimen today.

“Then what am I?” he challenged.

“A grumpy ass with a heart of gold,” Corvo declared, and it was worth it just to see Daud smile. But that wasn’t all he wanted to say. “But when we dance? The only one I see.” He was being too earnest again.

Daud bowed his head. “Corvo…”

Corvo had been prepared for a warning, but this… was different.

“What?” he prompted, leaning closer. When Daud looked up, there was precious little of the chasm left. Corvo held himself back. Daud watched him.

“Nothing,” he said. Then, he kissed Corvo.

One might have called the kiss artless, for all that they usually knew so well what to do with their own — and each other's — bodies. But to Corvo, it was perfect. He was a young man in love, and he was stupid. In more ways than one. Even if he were dreaming, it would be a good line for a song, he thought. Daud nipped at his lower lip before drawing away, and he should have liked to follow. But he opened his eyes and found Daud watching him, his gaze clouded and dark.

"Why now?" Corvo asked. "Why not then? Why not tomorrow?"

"Tomorrow, we'll be drunk on either triumph or defeat. Had to be now. So you know I meant it."

“Oh,” was all Corvo brought out. He looked at Daud, suspecting he was rather starstruck. Daud reached out to touch his cheek, drawing his thumb along his jaw.

“You’re going to be the death of me,” he whispered.

Corvo shivered in the warm night air. “Now who’s being a romantic?”

“Just dance with me tomorrow,” Daud murmured.

In reply, Corvo kissed him first this time.

*

Opening night Corvo would never forget. It felt like flying: all that gruelling effort, relentless rehearsals, and ceaseless training. Early mornings spent studying the same movements over and over… this was what it had built. This was what it had been _for_.

The critics went wild over their difference in height and stature and their yet equal strength. Corvo was deemed the elegance to Daud’s powerhouse, and Daud scoffed when he read the piece but did not protest when Corvo dredged up a paper copy of the paper and put the clipping up on their appointment board. For a few weeks, it was so easy. For a few weeks, it seemed they had nowhere to fall.

It was when one of the papers caught wind of their relationship that everything turned into a frenzy. Corvo never knew how it had gotten out, and he didn't care to find out over a decade later. Some money must have changed hands, of that he was sure enough. Young dancers were always broke. They were beleaguered with requests for interviews, joint interviews ideally, and reporters even showed up on campus to bother them for a soundbite. They got good at taking the hidden routes, and for a moment, it seemed exciting. One night after a performance that brought them standing ovations, Daud brought Corvo off right against the door of their room.

On the last night of the season, after their final performance, again met with standing ovations and the droning praise of their head of department, Corvo could have sworn he was floating. They had never been so good together: completely in sync, never apart. In the final movement, Daud broke protocol and reached for him, kept Corvo's hand in his as they parted for the final stance, and the auditorium _erupted_. It was madness. They celebrated that night, and Corvo had never seen Daud smile so wide. Their eyes were filled with adoration.

The next morning, the headmaster called them into his study. To reward them, they thought. But they were wrong.

One of them had to leave, he told them. For the sake of the reputation of their school suffering the attention of an insatiable press. For their sake. A relationship between students of their calibre... it was too fraught. Surely, they could understand. They had until the weekend to decide between themselves. If they couldn't, the board would make the choice for them.

They returned to their room afterwards, not talking the entire way. When they arrived, they still did not know what to say. Just as Corvo reached for him, Daud turned to his bed; mostly clothes storage now as they'd been sharing Corvo's by the window.

"I'll go."

Corvo's heart plummeted. "Daud?"

"You stay here. Finish it. I'll find something else."

Corvo couldn't believe his ears. "Daud, that— that's _ridiculous_. We'll both go."

Daud wheeled around, glaring daggers: "Don't be _stupid_. We never should have started this. But I — I had to go and give in. It's my fault. So I'll go."

"I told you I loved you!"

"And now you have to forget me," Daud said, suddenly gentle."Can you, Corvo? Can you do that for me?"

"No."

Daud stepped closer, and drew Corvo down to him with a hand on his neck. Pressing their foreheads together, he said: "You have to."

"Where will you go?" Corvo was barely holding back tears. "Where will you go that we can't go together?"

Daud's nose nudged his. "There's always another way."

"I don't want to do this without you."

"You can, and you will."

"I can't —"

"Corvo, there'll be no peace."

"And that's worth giving this up? _Peace_?"

"It is to see reason before we hurt each other,” Daud whispered.

They stood like this forever. And when the sun set, there was still no persuading Daud. His bags were packed by morning.

And so, Daud left him, left the Academy — and then, the country. That was the last he heard from him. Then, his number stopped working.

Corvo was rendered mute for a week.

A week later, Sokolov announced that Corvo would be awarded the Emperor's Scholarship; the most highly regarded program the Academy had to offer. The uproar, this time, was muted in comparison to the first. "Pity," he said. "I'm sure I could have persuaded them to give it to you both."

Dancer's ego, Corvo heard the whispers. Speculation they'd been in such competition for the Emperor scholarship that they couldn't take the strain.‘Never love within the company.’ Wise words, all useless to Corvo then. Yes, it had been foolish. They'd both known. They'd both paid the price — and Corvo was the lucky one. He had no idea where Daud had gone, and after months of searching online, he'd given up. Daud was a ghost, and he did not want to be found. He would make his return when he wanted to. Corvo had no doubt of that.

*

He graduated from the Academy four years later, and six months into his first company engagement, the news broke.

**ACADEMY PRODIGY RETURNS TO GRISTOL**

Daud had indeed made an entrance: with a company of his own, funded by a mysterious patron who had sponsored his education overseas. The whispers bubbled up again, and eyes turned to Corvo, by turns wary and inquisitive. But he let nothing show, focused on his work, and kept his thoughts to himself. He turned down requests for interviews, and ignored those given by former classmates who wanted to have a part in the sudden flurry of 'documentaries' about the Academy that all, somehow, came to circle around to that summer. Ballet critics hastened to go on the record that no-one who had seen them dance together that one, glorious summer would ever forget it.

Neither would Corvo. And it had taken him a long time to realise that Daud had as much run away from him as he'd meant to save him. Run from the scrutiny, the media, everyone's expectations piled on top of their own. And he'd run from Corvo, too, from a relationship that neither of them had really understood until they were caught up in the middle of it.

They'd never had a chance. And now they never would.

That summer in Dunwall, they were reaching in the dark: isolated and underestimated, they found each other and saved themselves from drowning. Corvo knew, now, that what had kept them apart after Daud’s return was one man’s choice to run and the other’s cowardice to follow. They’d been so young. And they’d been so ill-used.

Recordings of that final performance were still classroom material — it meant every year there was a new crop of students who had to be taught to know better than to ask Corvo about that summer, or to ask about Daud outright, and whether it was really true; solving ‘it’ for whatever gossip was _en vogue_ at the time. It meant that the memory was always there. Whenever they danced, whenever they received awards and accolades for their choreographies. Always that one question: if they were this good on their own — imagine what they might have accomplished together.

All those fifteen years. No matter how good Corvo’s dance partners were. He always knew.

“Call him,” Jessamine and Callista would urge him.

Corvo, bouncing Emily, their little girl and his favorite niece, on his knee, would always say no. What was there to say? Until one day, Jessamine called him with the offer of a lifetime.

“You’re joking.”

“It’s Sokolov. It’s his final production for the Royal Opera House before he retires and, well, he wants to hire you both.”

Corvo sat down heavily, glad that the studio was empty. “He won’t do it. It’s too… blatant. Daud hates being manipulated.”

“What if he says yes?”

“Then he’s a fool.”

“A fool for you?”

“Stop, Jess.”

“You know none of those beards he brings to premieres actually stick, right? Funnily enough, neither do yours.”

“Please put your wife on the line,” Corvo groaned, only half joking.

“Oh nice try, but you know she agrees with me.”

Corvo could _hear_ her smug smile. He sighed, rubbing his forehead.

She took pity on him. “Look, I know you really wanted to make it work with Teague. But I think we all knew what was holding you back. _Who_ was holding you back.”

“It’s been fifteen years, Jess,” Corvo said, his voice tired. “It was _one_ _summer_.”

“Corvo, I dare you to switch on the camera and look me in the eye and tell me you’ve forgotten him. I dare you.”

“It’s what he asked me to do when he left.” He didn’t turn on the camera.

“That’s not an answer.”

“It’s all the answer I have.” It was the only one he ever gave. She let it go after that. Usually.

Not this time. “Corvo, you can’t pass this up.”

He sighed again.

*

He did do his best. They had a month to say in or out, and the first two weeks were spent playing chicken. Playing that game with investors and theatre patrons and sponsors, Corvo knew that the hard part about playing chicken, was knowing when to flinch.

It’d been so long, spent successfully avoiding each other; and somehow the world had provided enough room for them. Catching sight of each other only in the _feuilleton_ pages of the Times and the Post and the Courier. They had never competed in the Prix Benois de la Danse in the same year, or sent students to to do. There seemed to be an unspoken agreement never to nominate them in the same category, either, simply for fear of neither of them showing up; although Jessamine liked to joke that they would be up for the lifelong achievement award when they were old and grey and too tired to fight on stage.

Some would call it a feud, but it wasn’t that. In a world not short of bad blood, there was none between them. Merely history. Best left unexplored.

At the end of the third week, Corvo received a letter from Sokolov. ‘Aren’t you curious?’ he wrote. Corvo called Jessamine.

They would be adults about this. Surely they could.

Corvo let Jess handle the contract details. She told him that Daud had sent a woman called Blanchard, a fierce negotiator and ‘bona fide asshole,’ in her words.

“I like her.”

Corvo heard Callista cackling in the background. He had a feeling that Jess and Blanchard teaming up against him (and Daud) would be the end of him long before Daud could ever decide to set out to ruin his day.

* * *

“Are you ready?” Jess asked him. They’d arrived at the theatre half an hour early, and had been asked to wait. His students were already downstairs, getting changed and ready. He would join them now, after meeting Sokolov and the conductor. And Daud.

“Stop asking me that,” he mumbled.

“Not until you answer honestly,” she returned.

Corvo refused to let his hands shake as he walked down the hall towards Sokolov’s office. The door was open, and Corvo could hear voices. Sokolov and the conductor, as well as the director of the opera, and the curator of the museum that provided the costumes. He walked closer and, in passing, glanced down the corridor that breached off to the right. By the large windows, flood the hallway with sunlight, next to a heavily tattooed woman, there stood a broad-shouldered man, clad in fitted dark blue trousers and a shirt that drew the eye from the dip of his waist to the breadth of his back and the darkness of his hair, slicked back and neat at the nape of his neck. Corvo knew that back. Knew that hair, black as night. He stopped walking. The man turned.

“Hello, Corvo,” he said.

Corvo’s stomach dropped. His voice was rough, and even deeper than he remembered. His eyes were exactly as grey. And then, there was the scar. Corvo had heard about it — an accident on stage, during rehearsal. He’d saved one of his students’ lives. His company had been overseas, and Corvo hadn’t been able to get out of an engagement for the length of his hospital stay. He’d never decided whether he actually would have gone to see him, truth be told; and Daud had been back on stage within a month. He’d refused reconstructive surgery, and told the world to take him as he was. It bent, naturally, to his will.

And now, he was standing in front of Corvo. He looked good.

Damn.

When they walked into Sokolov’s office _together_, it was as though being transported back in time.

“I wasn’t sure you’d be here,” Sokolov crowed. “But here you are. Corvo Attano and Daud Fàlaina, back in my class.”

“Good afternoon, Anton,” said Corvo pleasantly.

“I wasn’t sure you’d still be alive,” Daud grated next to him, and Corvo had to bite the inside of his cheek.

Damn him. And damn it all to hell.

*

The meeting went off without a hitch, which Corvo had not, strictly speaking, expected. Corvo had had fifteen years to deal with unbidden memories, and still he was almost surprised that he was not drowning in a flood of them now. But then, he was too preoccupied by Daud’s utter indifference. It stung. Just a little.

As much as Sokolov liked the sound of his own voice, he despised being late for rehearsal. And so they were let go swiftly enough, to join their students in the bowels of the house. Blanchard let Daud go with a dismissive wave of her hand, which he countered with a sneer. They were good friends, then. Corvo walked slightly ahead until Daud drew level with him.

“Took you a minute to come round to the idea?” Daud asked conversationally. Just making small talk.

“You didn’t?” Corvo returned.

Daud shrugged. “Had to rearrange my schedule first.”

Corvo fought not to turn to look at him. “Sure. It’s going to be a busy season for us, too,” he said, well aware that the damage was already done. Daud would already think less of him for being a sentimental fool. Best not give him any more ammunition.

At least one of them had managed to forget what they were running from.

“We’re doing the choreography demonstration?” Daud interrupted his marauding thoughts.

“Yes. See what we have in mind, see if it gels,” he confirmed. ‘It’s us, so it should,’ was something Corvo did not have the balls to say.

Daud hummed. “Who’re you dancing with?”

“Alexi Mayhew.” Corvo was a little surprised at the question but didn’t let it show. “She’s one of my best and brightest.”

“I’m sure,” Daud said. “Billie Lurk. Also good and bright, and ready to take your ear off if you look at her funny.”

Corvo knew of her — she’d competed in Lausanne, and won, two years before. He was not surprised that she’d been chosen as Daud’s right hand.

They’d arrived at the auditorium, and each laid a hand on a half of the heavy insulated doors.

“Ready?” Daud asked.

_Will everybody stop asking me that_.

“Yes.”

They pushed open the doors.

It must have been quite the sight, he supposed — and he saw it on their students’ faces, his and Daud’s, who turned as one at their entrance. No doubt they’d all been gossiping.

“Enough dawdling,” Daud called, and his crew immediately dropped their things, practically standing at attention. Corvo’s people looked vaguely concerned, yet intrigued.

“Sokolov will be watching,” Corvo picked up for the sake of their nerves. “So let’s not keep him waiting.”

And now, as they all filtered out onto the stage, marked for rehearsal, Corvo did turn to look. He found Daud watching him. His eyes were strangers.

“Let’s go.”

*

Neither of them had need to change in private: too used to the habit of doing so wherever there was enough room to turn on a coin. They went up the steps and entered the bright lights, joining their students in warming up. Corvo saw Sokolov chatting to Ashworth and Copperspoon, two of the sponsors of the production. They had been very generous, apparently.

Then it was time, Sokolov rang his customary bell. Everyone reflexively straightened who had ever attended one of his classes. Including Corvo. Even Daud.

“Begin.”

So they danced, starting with the overture, they worked their way through the music: improvising, shifting gears. It only worked with a partner with whom one was well in sync. And whenever Corvo caught Daud’s gaze across the floor, what he saw grew darker and darker. Like the Void breaking through the sky in the old myths and legends, like a storm gathering on a hot summer night.

Corvo’s world dimmed, as though in shadow. Daud had always had that way, of standing out when everything else shifted out of focus. It was how he’d bound Corvo to him on stage, kept him grounded. Corvo had never lost himself to the dance with Daud — some might call that a lesser experience. To Corvo, it had been an anchor — one he’d missed, the first year after Daud had left. Afterwards, he had learnt to become his own lifeline.

They danced on, and the air in the auditorium seemed to thicken. Could the others feel it?

On a soaring note, Corvo lifted Alexi in the air, by now a well-practised manoeuvre that had failed them only in the beginning. From across the floor, he heard — a growl?

“Enough for the kids,” Daud’s hewn voice cut in above the music. Everything stopped, and Alexi stepped away. “Leave us,” Daud said roughly.

Lurk nodded and retreated, and Alexi looked to Corvo. He nodded. He dared not speak for how dry his mouth had gone.

“Come on, Attano.” There was a challenge in Daud’s eyes Corvo did not understand.

“My name is Corvo,” he rumbled, and stepped in close.

“No ass?” Daud drew his brow mockingly.

“Dance,” Corvo commanded. He’d not let Daud dredge up all those memories now, only to torture him with them.

“As you wish.”

And so they danced. Twisting, winding around each other, falling into that old push and pull. Corvo leapt and Daud followed, Daud turned and Corvo met him on the other side. The music swelled, and they fell into each other. Corvo felt Daud’s hot breath on his neck. Then, they flew apart.

* * *

“Did you have a good rehearsal?” Jessamine asked as a mother would as soon as he was through the door. The glee in her voice was difficult to miss.

He sighed. “Who told you?”

“Alexi texted me. Said you might be… what’s the word? Recalcitrant.”

“Traitor,” Corvo grumbled under his breath as he set down his bags and accepted a leg hug from a sleepy Emily. At three years old, she was the only one in this household who didn’t give him grief about Daud, whenever he was in town and staying over.

“So there _is_ a confidence to betray,” Callista chimed in from the living room doorway. “Do tell: are you still single?”

“Why would I not be?” Corvo asked tersely.

“Oh, I don’t know, for the same reason Daud still is, or isn’t?” she returned.

“We are professional dancers who never stay in one place, of course we’re single,” Corvo gave her the simplest possible answer.

“Now try the reason that’s not the spiel you give every journalist angling for some gossip,” Jessamine quipped.

Corvo dropped his shoulders, willing himself to relay. He was still wound up, and he shouldn’t be. “There is no other reason.”

“Right,” Jess and Callista said in unison, and he glared at them in turn.

“I can just go to a hotel,” he threatened mildly; but their protests were preempted by Emily wrapping more tightly around his calf. Alright, perhaps not tonight. He was tired, anyway.

*

He almost dreaded going back to the Opera House the next day, but there was hardly any choice in the matter. He watched the man in the mirror, trying to recall the boy he had once been. He couldn’t. He refused to wonder whether Daud could.

And so it went, that day and the next, and the next, and the next. Working out what parts of the choreography worked, what didn’t, pooling ideas until something clicked, then drilling it into their crew. Even more than an exercise in civility and restraint, it was a lesson in how to trust one’s instincts — an invaluable lesson to their students. To Corvo and Daud, a test of their patience.

They focused on the work, on the music, and they managed to even look each other in the eye once in a while. They _could_ be adults about this. The trouble was that, with every passing day, Corvo found, increasingly, that he didn’t _want to_. The tension between them tucked away did not stop it from mounting. Every memory assessed for weakness, harmless — even professional — conversation turned into weapons, knives drawn and out to cut through layers and layers of veneer.

“That turn can be a bastard,” Daud said, by the by, to Billie; when one of Corvo’s students nearly fumbled to keep the pace. Same as he had done when he and Daud had first started training. He’d very nearly seriously injured himself, if not for Daud’s quick reaction.

“It doesn’t give me any trouble,” Corvo replied, taking the bait too easily.

Daud’s glance was odd. “Good to know.”

Like this, they struggled their way through the first week, suffering each other and Sokolov’s glinting eyes. Corvo dreaded the days that would grow longer, the days they would have to stay past rehearsals, work together to fix the movements and settle it with Sokolov. All that time, together and a world apart. All the while Daud maintained his blank indifference.

One night, Daud turned to Corvo as they were wrapping up rehearsal and said, “Don’t know if you’ve noticed, but Rinaldo and Simmons have been making eyes at each other. Talk to yours, will you? Can’t let them go down the same path we did.” And with that, he shouldered his bags and left, leaving Corvo behind, struck dumb and, after a moment, shaking with anger. In a strange rendition of a day half a lifetime ago, or so it felt, Corvo once again chased after Daud. But he knew not yet what for. He caught up with him in the carpark.

“The same path?” he demanded when Daud was still twenty paces away, almost at his car.

Daud stopped and turned.

“We were put in an untenable position when we were hardly men,” Corvo continued.

Daud’s brows shot up. “You wish to encourage them?”

“I want them to be able to make their own choices.”

“You mean mistakes,” Daud snapped. The mask began to slip. Finally.

“You left,” Corvo accused. “You ran away because you were always going to. Only then it would have been some cock and bull story about the Academy being the wrong place for you.”

“It _was_ the wrong place for me,” Daud barked, and only now did Corvo recognise the fire in his eyes. “You were always better at fitting in.”

“Are you calling me spineless?” Corvo said, aghast, and Daud threw his hands up in exasperation.

“I’m calling you _resilient_. Patient. You’re a better man than I, Corvo, why do you think I wanted you to stay? Nothing good would’ve come of you following me. I had to cut my own path. I would have only hurt you.”

The crushing weight of knowing made Corvo’s breathing heavy and his heart beat louder. “You hurt me by leaving,” he admitted quietly but clearly.

“You should have long forgotten me,” Daud answered.

Corvo smiled, but it was bitter and brittle. “As you have forgotten me.” He lowered his gaze. He had to get out of here.

“If you truly believe that, you are a fool,” Daud’s words raised his head again, and what he found was the same pain he’d carried for so long. “You, Corvo Attano, are a fool and a—“

Desperate, Corvo leaned down to steal the words from Daud’s own lips, and make them into better things. He rendered them into a kiss that was anger, longing, loneliness. It was their hearts, made weak by time. Hands found his shoulders, then Daud surged against him. He bit his lip, but when Corvo gentled him, he sighed.

They parted, and Corvo pushed his nose against Daud’s temple.

“We can’t,” Daud whispered.

“We’re our own masters now,” Corvo whispered back.

“People will talk.” Daud nudged Corvo’s chin up so he could lay a kiss against his jaw.

“Let them. Void’s sake, Daud, let them.”

No-one else was coming. They stood, wrapped up together, until the dark swallowed them whole.

**Author's Note:**

> prompt was: "trope mash-up: green-eyed epiphany + romantic dance"


End file.
